The employment contract and the paradoxes of precariousness

Over the last few decades, and accelerating over the last 10 years, employment contract law and practice in the UK has moved from a solid state, in which contractual stability was the norm, to a tangle of precarious forms of employment relationships. This descent into precariousness presents us with a number of legal and practical paradoxes. Perhaps the most obvious is the central role acquired by the so-called "zero hours contract" - a paradoxical figure since, in many of its forms, this type of employment does not qualify as an employment contract. Another example is the abolition of a legal retirement age in the name of combating discrimination; under the guise of securing employment for older workers, we will show that this measure actually has the effect of making this employment more precarious than ever, and undermining the very notion of permanent employment. The conference will highlight not only the legal basis, but also the profound economic and social impact of these legal paradoxes.